YEMEN (OFFICIALLY THE REPUBLIC OF YEMEN)
is an Arab country on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula and the second-largest country in the region with a 2,000 kilometer coastline. It’s also one of the oldest civilization centers in the Near East, and the first country in the Arabian Peninsula to give women the right to vote. It’s estimated that the 2019 population of Yemen is 29.58 million,
Yemen is one of the least developed countries in the world with the vast majority of its population in rural and tribal areas, and it’s seen many conflicts and civil wars in recent history. Yemen has a young population as well, with almost half of its people under 15. Yemen has the 30th highest fertility rate in the world at 4.45 children per woman.
Most Yemenis are of Arab origin, as most minorities left when the former states of north and south Yemen were established. The country remains, for the most part, a tribal society with about 400 Zaydi tribes in the northern region and hereditary caste groups in urban areas, most notably Al-Akhdam.
Yemen can be divided geographically into four main regions: the coastal plains in the west, the western highlands, the eastern highlands, and the Rub’ al Khali in the east.
In 2014, a constitutional panel decided to divide the country into six regions—four in the north, two in the south, and capital Sana’a outside of any region—creating a federalist model of governance.
Yemen’s constitutionally stated capital is the city of Sana’a, but the city has been under Houthi rebel control since February 2015.
The population of Yemen is 25,408,000 people (2013 est.) .
Yemen is a developing country, and the poorest country in the Middle East. In 2016, the United Nations reported that Yemen is the country with the most people in need of humanitarian aid in the world with 21.2 million.
Yemen’s constitutionally stated capital is the city of Sana’a, but the city has been under Houthi rebel control since February 2015.
The population of Yemen is 25,408,000 people (2013 est.) .
Yemen is a developing country, and the poorest country in the Middle East. In 2016, the United Nations reported that Yemen is the country with the most people in need of humanitarian aid in the world with 21.2 million.
THE YEMENI CIVIL WAR
is an ongoing conflict that began in 2015 between two factions: the Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi led Yemeni government and the Houthi armed movement, along with their supporters and allies. Both claim to constitute the official government of Yemen.
Houthi forces currently controlling the capital Sanaʽa, allied with forces loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, have clashed with the forces loyal to Hadi who are based in Aden. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have also carried out attacks, with AQAP controlling swathes of territory in the hinterlands, and along stretches of the coast.
On 21 March 2015, after taking over Sanaʽa and the Yemeni government, the Houthi-led Supreme Revolutionary Committee declared a general mobilization to overthrow Hadi and expand their control by driving into southern provinces. The Houthi offensive, allied with military forces loyal to Saleh, began fighting the next day in Lahij Governorate. By 25 March, Lahij fell to the Houthis and they reached the outskirts of Aden, the seat of power for Hadi’s government. Hadi fled the country the same day.
Concurrently, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched military operations by using air strikes to restore the former Yemeni government.The United States provided intelligence and logistical support for the campaign. According to the UN and other sources, from March 2015 to December 2017, between 8,670–13,600 people were killed in Yemen, including more than 5,200 civilians, as well as estimates of more than 50,000 dead as a result of an ongoing famine due to the war.
The conflict has been widely seen as an extension of the Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy conflict and as a means to combat Iranian influence in the region. In 2018, the United Nations warned that 13 million Yemeni civilians face starvation in what it says could become “the worst famine in the world in 100 years.”
The international community has sharply condemned the Saudi Arabian-led bombing campaign, which has included widespread bombing of civilian areas. The bombing campaign has killed or injured an estimated 17,729 civilians as of March 2019 according to the Yemen Data Project. Despite this, the crisis has only recently begun to gain as much international media as the Syrian civil war. The conflict has resulted in a famine that is affecting 17 million people. The lack of safe drinking water, caused by depleted aquifers and the destruction of the country’s water infrastructure, has also caused the largest, fastest-spreading cholera outbreak in modern history, with the number of suspected cases exceeding 994,751. Over 2,226 people have died since the outbreak began to spread rapidly at the end of April 2017
